


short days, long nights

by trapavoid



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Humor, M/M, One Night Stands, please read this it's stupid but good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2019-10-22 23:49:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17672402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trapavoid/pseuds/trapavoid
Summary: Dan is a very thirsty vampire and Phil, who he's just met at the world's seediest little club, is hot and presumably has blood. Presumably.This could work out for both of them - or at least for Dan, which is what's important.





	1. Chapter 1

Dan normally feels at home here, under the pulsating lights of this hole-in-the-wall nightclub, amidst the sweaty, writhing bodies of its equally sketchy patrons. It’s normally food to him – quite literally – but as he hasn’t fed in what feels like fucking forever, it’s actually all making him quite dizzy this time around. 

He knows he must look ill – and to be sure, the club’s dim, shifting lights across his features are doing him no favors. Whatever it is, though, the club goers give him a wide berth tonight. A woman in some leather bondage contraption with a literal _ball gag_ in her mouth gives him a condescending look as she whirls past him and that – _that_ – is the last straw.

He swears under his breath and pushes his way out of the mass of bodies on the dancefloor, stomping his way over to the bar where he plans to sulk until _someone_ gets him some _fucking blood to drink_. And he’s not hunting in this neighborhood again, okay, because the bums around here taste like whatever substance is currently slogging through their bloodstreams and slowly poisoning their hearts. They’ve already started to rot, and Dan has _standards_ , starving or not – plus, he likes to play with his food a bit, if he can, and immortal or not, pubic lice? Very unpleasant. 

He flops down gracelessly onto a barstool (the spinny kind, thank _fuck_ ) and waves away the bartender when she asks what Dan wants to drink. He almost says “Bloody Mary,” to be ironic or something, but inside jokes with yourself feel a little . . . sad. 

She rolls her eyes and flounces away.

He spins in his chair to face the dancefloor, leaning back against the countertop. 

It’s not like he _has_ to be picky about who he chooses. Sure, they have to be somewhere in his own age bracket (as in, not a literal elder), and they have to at least _look_ like they won’t taste like crack-laced sewer water, but the whole selection process is rather low risk. Here’s how it goes: someone in this place is either going to be desperate enough or drunk enough to go home with him. Then they’re going to make out for, like, a second, and then Dan’s going to bite them and feed from them. They’ll enter a daze, fall asleep, and Dan will take his leave – they’ll be perfectly fine the next morning and have no memory of the strange guy they took home the night before.

Everyone wins. Especially Dan, who gets a meal out of it, but that’s beside the point.

He surveys the crowd.

There’s a guy on the edge of the floor who looks like he has his eyes closed, just kind of swaying alone and obviously feeling the music. He’s good looking, too, maybe almost as tall as Dan and dressed in black.

Dan counts him as a maybe. 

There’s a woman more toward the middle of the throng of people, who dances like she owns the club and everyone in it. Her hair is long and loose and flowing, and her neck is graceful and thin as she throws her head back. She’s out of Dan’s league, but he decides she’s a hopeful maybe. 

And then there’s a – 

“Ah, not your scene either?” shouts a voice to his left, awkwardly loud to be heard over the bass of the music.

Dan glances over to find a guy perched on the stool next to him, ridiculously fruity-looking drink on the counter beside him. His hair is neat and black and he’s got this hopeful, vulnerable kind of smile stretching across his face and squinting his eyes. Dan has never seen anyone like him at this particular establishment – someone who looks like they’ve got a nice job, and a dog, maybe, who goes home to his parents on Christmas.

He’s good looking, though. Dan’ll give him that.

“It’s exactly my scene,” Dan says finally.

“What?” the guy cups his ear.

“I said, it’s exactly my scene,” Dan tries again, shouting this time. “On the rare occasion that I can be fucked to leave my apartment.”

The guy laughs in that way that genuine people do, where they manage to smile with their whole faces. Dan watches him, head cocked.

“It’s definitely not mine,” says they guy. “My scene, I mean. My mate PJ – see him, dancing alone over there?” He points to the man Dan had been watching earlier. “He dragged me here, as he loves it here – I mean, _I_ don’t know what he was thinking because I’d much rather stay – you know, at home. Anyway, I’m Phil! It’s nice to meet you, fellow introvert.”

He extends a pale hand, and Dan shakes it incredulously. “Dan,” he says.

“Dan,” Phil repeats. “Dan, Dan. Dan the man. Rhymes with ‘pan.’ I like it.”

“You’re very interesting,” Dan says honestly. 

“Can I buy you a drink, Dan?” Phil asks. 

Dan feels a rush of misplaced fondness for this guy he’s just met. Poor thing has no idea. “Thanks,” he says. “But I don’t drink.”

“Oh,” Phil shrugs. “Oh! Heh, like – _I don’t drink . . . wine._ ” He puts on a bad Romanian accent for the last part. “Dracula,” he explains informedly when Dan only stares at him.

“I know what you were referencing,” Dan scoffs. “And yes, like that.”

“I would rather be drinking Ribena, myself,” says Phil, leaning back against the counter to mirror Dan’s pose. “But I stick out enough here as it is, so I didn’t want to be _that guy_ who’s sat in the corner drinking juice, you know?” He smiles to himself.

Dan smiles too. They’re still having to shout to be heard over the pulsing bass of the music, but this guy is interesting enough to be worth it, and Dan, surprisingly, feels himself settling in for a genuine conversation. He’s about to say something else when Phil reaches up to scratch his neck – leaving red lines in his fingers’ wake – and Dan is reminded how starved he is, and what he came here for. 

“Phil,” he says. “It’s really been so nice to meet you – you’re lovely, really – but I’ve got to go.” He hops off the stool and pointedly doesn’t meet Phil’s (probably offended) gaze. “I hope you come here aga – ”

“Dan, wait,” Phil says quickly, grabbing at Dan’s arm. Dan looks at him, finally, and he’s worrying his lower lip between his teeth, eyes darting around. “I know I’m not – you know, the typical patron of this place, but – I thought it was really nice that – I mean, _ha,_ you’re – ” His voice trails off into the din of the club.

“Phil.”

“Ah,” Phil takes a breath. He’s speaking only just loud enough to be heard. “Look, I’m not the type to do this usually, but do you want to get out of here? My place isn’t far, so.”

Dan feels his eyebrows creep up in genuine and probably mildly condescending surprise. Phil’s right – he’s obviously not the type to hook up with strangers at seedy little clubs in the bad part of town, and the guy’s so sweet that Dan feels a little bad that his main intentions are to, like, feed off of him or whatever. But they get on so well and Phil is so kind that he probably won’t even mind (plus, a lot of people end up _liking_ it, the whole biting thing, so there’s that). And . . . Phil’s good looking enough and it’s not like he’ll even _remember . . ._

“…Okay,” Dan says. “Alright, Phil.”

Phil just sits there. 

“Come on, then. Lead the way.”

“Wh – really? Are you serious?”

“Well don’t go taking it back _now_ ,” Dan frowns. “Not now that I’ve gotten a bit excited about it.”

Phil leaps down from his own barstool. “Oh, shit – ah, okay, I’ve got to tell Peej to find his own way home – ” he takes two steps towards the dancefloor before he whirls back around and points at Dan. “Stay _right where you are, I’ll only be a moment._ ” And then he scurries off to where his friend – PJ – is still swaying rather hypnotically to the music, pushing through sweaty leather and silk-clad bodies as he goes.

Dan watches with amusement as Phil taps PJ on the shoulder and says something directly in his ear, to which the man throws back his head and laughs, clapping Phil on the shoulder. 

Dan doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into this time, but he can’t think about that too much because Phil’s already speed walking back towards him and grabbing his hand. 

“Ready, then?” he asks, beaming.

“Yup.” Phil pulls him out of the club and doesn’t let go of his hand for the entire ten or so minutes it takes to walk back to Phil’s place. They talk as they go, Phil swinging their joined hands between them in the past-midnight darkness. He asks questions like a primary school teacher in charge of ice breakers on the first day of school, but Dan finds he doesn’t mind.

“Favorite game,” Phil fires off, straight off the heels of “favorite food” and “worst school teacher you’ve ever had.” His voice is soft and deep when he doesn’t have to yell to be heard.

“Halo,” Dan says without thinking. “Just for the mems.”

Phil beams. “Mortal Kombat for me, for the same reason. Let’s see . . . favorite album.”

“Ah . . . dunno. You first.”

“Okay, well – I mean, in terms of genres, there’s a lot of – ah, okay. You’re right, this is a _terrible_ question. There are so many different ones and it’s unfair to choose one.”

“That being said,” Dan says, surprising himself, “Origins of Symmetry is always good.”

“Muse!” Phil blurts, obviously pleased. He looks over at Dan, prominent features lit orange by a streetlight they’re passing under. “I love that album,” he says, a little softer.

Dan looks back at him and then they’re looking at each other for a very uncomfortable amount of time before Dan is forced to clear his throat to alleviate some tension.

Phil laughs nervously and looks away. “It’s a great album.”

“Right.”

“Hey, your hands are _really_ cold,” Phil says. “Here we are, also.”

As Phil digs into his pocket for his keys, Dan takes the opportunity to snatch his hand away, trying futilely to warm it in his pocket.

He looks up at Phil’s place. He can see pretty well in the dark (it’s part of the job description, he guesses), and what can make out is a low-rise old-fashioned building, all crumbling brick and curling wrought iron. The inside, which only gets to see after several attempts at unlocking the rusty door and one hip check on Phil’s part, is a squat, dimly-lit hallway with peeling beige walls and a scrappy carpet to match. 

“My apartment is up a floor,” Phil says, rubbing at his neck. He sees Dan looking around and adds hurriedly, “I know, it’s awful. Isn’t it? Makes me feel like I’m going to be murdered by a . . . cockroach gang, or something.”

“It’s fine.” Dan rolls his eyes. He’s seen worse. “The walls look thick, at the very least.”

Phil coughs violently, almost doubling over, and Dan pats his back soothingly. It’s the last time they speak until they reach Phil’s apartment. 

It’s very small, of course, like everything in the building, and Phil visibly gears up to make some self-depreciating comment about it.

Dan doesn’t know how he knows Phil so well already – or at least feels like he does – but he’s so disgustingly fond of him that he’s almost not surprised. He’s almost sorry that the guy won’t remember a thing about him when he wakes up tomorrow. Regardless, he kisses Phil before he can say anything about his little apartment or the mess or the nerdy figurines lining the walls – he kisses him softly, closed-mouth, like they’re in year seven and it’s some teenybopper school dance.

Phil hums a little, pleased, and opens his mouth a bit, hands coming to rest on Dan’s waist. Dan pulls away and tells Phil that’s he’s got a cool apartment – “So don’t be a spoon about it” – against his smiling lips.

“I . . .” Phil flutters his eyes shut, and then opens them again to beam at Dan. “It is pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Dan snorts and pulls fully away from him. He let Phil off too easy. “Yeah, okay. Where’s your bedroom, Mr. Levi-figurines-in-his-kitchen?”

Phil opens and closes his mouth several times, gearing up to protest, or maybe defend the anime in question, before apparently settling on laughing. His tongue sticks out distractingly between his teeth. “You’re the one who recognized him,” he snickers.

It’s Dan’s turn to be appalled. “Look, you don’t have to be a weeb to recognize him, but you _definitely_ have to be one to buy a Funko Pop of him.”

Phil leans way into his space, smiling infuriatingly. “I bet,” he says (and Dan is too distracted by Phil’s breath on his lips to prepare himself for whatever sick burn Phil’s about to drop on him. _God_ , he’s hungry), “you’re one of those people that take anime so seriously they refuse to call it by its American name. I bet you call it Shingeki no Kyojin.”

Dan snorts in Phil’s face, hunger forgotten. “That’s because that’s its _name_. That’s what the show is _called_ , wow – nice burn, _loser_ – ”

“So I was right!” Phil says, clapping like a toddler. He laughs delightedly, and Dan is forced to kiss him again to shut him up. 

”Oh,” Phil says against his mouth as Dan opens wider, and then all nerdy conversation is forgotten as they stumble down a short hallway and into what Dan assumes is Phil’s bedroom. 

There’s an appallingly small bed pushed into a green-painted corner and they fall into it, heavy hands and ragged breaths. Phil ends up on his back with Dan kind of hovering over him, and he’s staring up at Dan in a way that can really only be described as adoringly. Dan’s hunger from earlier, which he’s very minimally managed to push back all night, roars to the forefront of his mind – and there Phil is, pale and pretty and lying there, like he would let Dan do anything to him – 

Phil reaches his arms up to pull Dan down to him, and Dan goes down like a sinking ship. In the poetic sense and in the sense where he’s not prepared, so all his weight just kind of goes crashing down on Phil. Phil still seems into it after that, though, so at least he didn’t completely ruin the moment.

Master of sex, that is Dan.

He reaches around Phil to maneuver off his shirt, pausing when he feels the other man flinch.

“Is this… okay?” he asks. 

“Ah…” Phil looks over Dan’s shoulder and wets his lips. “Yeah. It’s fine – um. Go on.”

Dan shrugs. “I can go first if it makes you feel any better,” he says, already working at the buttons of his own shirt. It’s, like, a really nice one – silk, Versace – so even though he tries to be nonchalant and cool as he shucks it off and tosses it over his shoulder, he still takes care to see that it ends up _not_ in a wad on the floor. 

When he turns back around, Phil’s staring at him. 

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Now Dan’s self-conscious, too. “I don’t work out,” he says flippantly, becoming acutely aware of the little layer of baby fat he’s got going on in his midsection. Being undead comes with the delightful side perk of looking like this forever, too, so that’s fun. 

“No! No, no, I wasn’t –” Phil sputters. “You’re really beautiful. That’s all.”

Dan feels a phantom flush light up his whole body – he can’t blush anymore, but his skin prickles in the best way possible, his hands curling at his sides.

“Cheesy,” he murmurs, not looking at Phil. “Get up here, you.”

He pulls Phil up so they’re sitting facing each other and works at the buttons on Phil’s shirt. It’s got little hearts all over it and is absurdly cute, but “cute” isn’t at the forefront of his mind as he exposes more and more of Phil’s neck and chest. He’s got some hair there – oh, good, so only one of them will look like a prepubescent girl – and his skin is the same blue-white as the rest of his body.

Jesus. Dan’s supposed to be the undead one here. 

It works for Phil, though. He’s beautiful, but Dan is more a victim of his own shame than Phil seems to be and can’t get the words out without feeling embarrassed. “You’re fit,” he says instead, casual and offhand.

Phil smiles like he knows what Dan wanted to say, and then they’re kissing again, hot and heavy this time. Dan opens his mouth and lets Phil in, feeling his tongue and breath and teeth on his own mouth. It’s messy and Dan’s tight in his jeans – he groans and presses a hand to Phil’s pulse point in his neck, kissing down his jaw. 

Phil is making these sounds and Dan wants to – wants to – 

“How far are we going to go?” Phil gasps as Dan reaches his collarbone. 

Dan sighs, self-control balancing on the tip of a proverbial knife. He’s going to feed off Phil, at this point – that’s a given. After he does that, Phil’s going to feel drained, dizzy, and hazy as a result of Dan’s Super Special Predator Saliva (trademark), and in no state to consent to anything (not that Dan is the king of consent, because he’s going to be biting Phil without his permission, but it’s a little hard to ask permission for something like this so Dan feels he gets a bit of a pass). And then Phil is going to sleep until morning, where he will wake up in his bed, a little groggy but overall refreshed, with no memory of Dan or anything happening between them. 

So anything that _does_ happen is going to have to happen before he bites Phil, which, judging from the burning in his throat, is going to be pretty fucking soon.

What he’s saying is he doesn’t have an answer to that particular question. So he does what any socially awkward impulse-driven immortal would do: he panics and bites Phil right then and there.

Full send. Just fuckin’ bites him.

Can you fucking _believe_ this guy. 

(Wherein “this guy” is Dan, who is currently referring to himself in the third person to avoid responsibility for his actions.)

Phil makes a sound somewhere between a gasp and a groan, which is equal parts hot and hilarious, and leans his head forward to rest it on Dan’s shoulder. He whimpers now and then, sometimes swears under his breath, but otherwise doesn’t move. 

Dan continues to draw blood in huge, gasping mouthfuls. Phil’s blood is good, better than good, and Dan hums happily as he sucks. Phil goes quiet, as Dan expected – he should pass out soon, either from the sedative in Dan’s saliva or the blood loss. 

So he’s surprised when he feels a little nip at his own shoulder. 

A giggle.

“So _this_ is what you’re into,” Phil says brightly. “Knew you couldn’t be _completely_ normal if you were at that club.”

Dan stops sucking. 

He doesn’t move.

“I mean, a biting thing isn’t _that_ weird, considering all the – you know. Options. That are out there, but just for future reference we should probably discuss… kink things… before you try them, you know?”

Dan is just sitting there like a fucking idiot, motionless, with his fangs lodged in Phil’s neck.

“I mean, I don’t hate it! It really felt like – I don’t know, like you were actually sucking my blood or something!”

Dan cannot formulate even a single thought. His last two braincells are about as lost as he is.

“Do you sharpen your teeth or something?”

_What the fuck is happening._

“Sorry, I’m talking a lot – you didn’t have to stop.”

He has no precedent for something like this.

“Dan?”

Should he run?”

“Daaaaaaaaaan?”

Hide?

“Dan!” Phil pulls away, effectively popping Dan’s fangs _out of his fucking neck_ , and shakes him. “Are you okay?”

Dan can only watch blood bead at the junction of the two wounds he’s inflicted on Phil’s neck. He hopes he doesn’t have any on his face, because, for the first time in his life, he has – impossibly – some explaining to do.

“You . . . know who I am?” he says eventually, just to be sure.

“What? Of course I – oh my god, are you high?” Phil narrows his eyes.

“No! No, I – look, Phil, do you feel okay? Weird in any way? Woozy, maybe?”

“Yeah, I’m _fine_. You’re the one who’s being weird, Dan.”

“You’re not starting to forget anything that happened tonight at all?” Dan tries not to sound hopeful.

“This feels date rape-y,” Phil says, eyes narrowing further. “If you tried to roofie my drink somehow, I just want you to know that I did take a self-defense class when I was –”

“Stop talking for a second,” Dan says. Phil’s eyebrows shoot up so Dan tacks on, “Sorry. Need to think for a moment.”

Phil shakes his head, muttering under his breath, and moves stiffly to put his shirt back on. Dan closes his eyes.

This . . . shouldn’t be happening. There’s _no way_ that this is even remotely possible. Phil shouldn’t even be awake right now, at the very least shouldn’t be coherent, and _definitely_ shouldn’t have any memory of the night’s events or Dan. If he’s resistant to the venom then it’s only a matter of time before he feels the puncture wounds, realizes he’s actually bleeding, and puts two and two together. Then will come the questions, the police call, and all sorts of things that Dan really, _really_ doesn’t want to deal with – plus, he likes London, and doesn’t want to have to move again. No, fuck that, he _can’t_ move again because he’s fucking broke from the fucking _last time he was found out._

“Well then!” he says loudly, eyes snapping open. He’s thought of a thrilling solution to this little predicament. “Think I’m gonna go, then.”

Phil, who is now as far away from him on the bed as it is possible to be, lets his mouth fall open. “You’re joking.”

“Nope,” Dan says, getting up and dusting off his jeans. He picks up his shirt off the floor. “Sorry about all this, Phil. You’re a lovely, amazing person and I think in another life we were probably best friends – but I’m going to go ahead and let myself out.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“That’s it, then?” Phil says eventually, disbelievingly. “No . . . _no_ other explanation?”

“I really am sorry.” Out of genuine care for Phil’s emotional wellbeing and – he admits – fondness for the guy, he tries not to make it sound like he’s rushing out. Which he is.

He nods once, resolutely, before spinning around and speed walking to the door.

“Dan,” Phil says softly, right as Dan’s about to escape. Dan freezes like he’s an art theif and Phil’s a portly security guard with a flashlight and a walkie-talkie. 

But then he turns around and there’s genuine hurt in Phil’s eyes. Dan feels it like a vice in his chest. 

“I’m not going to pretend . . . pretend like I know what’s going on. Because I _don’t_ , believe me. All of this weird stuff happened really fast. And that was gearing up to be really weird and kind of bad sex, but I – you know, wasn’t _not_ into it?”

Dan cocks his head.

“Okay, I wasn’t super into it. But! If you’re leaving because of that, please don’t. Because more than that, you can’t deny we had – _have_ a connection! I mean, you said it yourself. It feels like I’ve known you for – for my whole life. You’re being super weird right now, but – I don’t know, just talk to me instead of up and leaving.”

Dan opens his mouth to say – well, definitely something stupid, probably more generic excuses. The words never make it out.

“Just… please don’t go.”

Dan feels his gaze soften. “ _Phil_ ,” he says. “This – me having to go right now – has nothing to do with you, okay? Nothing. I was the arsehole who – you know. Did all that and fucked things up, but you were perfect and amazing and everything anyone could want in a guy. That’s the reason this can’t happen, though. You deserve the world, Phil. Not me.”

Phil curls his knees up to his chest. “Are you a drug dealer or something? Because I – ”

“I’m _not_ ,” Dan interjects, “a drug dealer. But I’m not a good guy either. Not someone who you should have in your apartment, and definitely not someone who you should have sex with.”

“I would get it if you didn’t want to, but – I mean, I think you do? So that’s not something you can decide for me.” He looks down at the floor, and then back up at Dan, eyes wide. “Do you _have something?_ Is that what this is? Because I’m not stupid, no matter how far we were going to go I was planning on using protection.”

They fall into silence after that, Phil staring holes into Dan and Dan looking out Phil’s window like it’s the most interesting window he has ever seen in his entire undead life.

As he stares resolutely out the window and not at Phil, he thinks about what he’s going to say very, very carefully. Phil likes him a lot, and as much as it complicates things, he’s also disgustingly fond of the guy. But. That’s all the more reason to leave, isn’t it? Vampires don’t do relationships. _Dan_ doesn’t do relationships. He needs food, Phil is food, and you just don’t date food. Especially when said food doesn’t know it’s food. _And_ the food spells trouble for you in every way, which is bad because you’re used to a distinctly trouble-free life. But the food, just to complicate things, is nice and amazing and somehow resistant to vampire venom, so you’ve subsequently hurt its feelings and cannot explain to it that you respect it too much to eat.

Dan risks a glance at Phil, who is effectively looking like a kicked – but still righteous! – puppy. Dan snaps his gaze back to the window.

This is a horrible situation. 

No good.

Rotten, really.

And Dan . . . Dan is not good at dealing with horrible, no good, rotten situations.

For the second time that night, Dan Howell does what any socially awkward impulse-driven immortal would do: he gives Phil one last soft look before diving head-first through the second story window, shattering it in the process, and disappears into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to the 2.5 people that read chapter 1: i'm literally a goblin i'm so sorry it took this long to get out chapter 2 + i will apologize more in the ending notes

Dan was a theater kid when he was in school, so he’s not going to try to lecture anyone on the STEM side of the world. Science has always struck him as undeniably cool but also undeniably out of his league – not that he isn’t smart, he just . . . he took A level geography in school instead of biology, okay? Knowing his (nearly overwhelming) geography prowess, the more scientific aspects of his little vampire thing tend to escape him. 

Here’s what he knows: a couple years ago, he was picked up at a scrappy bar not dissimilar to the one where he’d met Phil. He’d gotten so horny that he’d agreed to be turned into a blood-dependent undead being, participated in a dark and very bloody ritual to accomplish this, had the best sex of his entire life, and had woken up the next morning and killed the landlady. 

He feels bad about it, when he remembers. She had tasted very faintly of perfume and cat hair. 

The guy who turned him was apologetic – caught up in the moment, apparently – but for the most part without preamble, Dan had begun his new life as an undead piece of garbage rather than a living one. He didn’t hold a grudge, really. He was agnostic at best and eternal life was fucking rocket fuel to aesthetic nihilism, so all was well. 

And the finer points of life remained a constant – namely, he could still eat, and still very much enjoyed eating. But now it was blood that kept him going (scientifically dubious, but Dan wasn’t going to be the one to question it). Blood tasted like life and energy and liquid fire, searing through his veins and tricking his dead heart into drudging along for another day, for endless days until the end time.

Food . . . tasted like food. And before anyone says anything – yes, okay, vampires still needed to shit. You… you puts food in, you gets food out. 

Or something.

So it’s not unusual that he’s wandering around Whole Foods on a Sunday afternoon, exactly eight days after what he’s begun to call THE INCIDENT, thinking offhandedly about that one video where that girl talked about finding her soulmate in Whole Foods as he was buying celery. He considers, for a moment, buying celery just to pay tribute to poetic cinema, but that would be a waste of already scarce money.

He pushes his near-empty cart to the snack aisle instead. He’s got no reason to eat healthy these days, anyway, so – 

“Oh, this is not happening.” 

Dan doesn’t know if he’s mentioned this, but he was a theater kid. As such, he did not take Statistics. If he had to take a guess, however, he might say that statistically, it’s _pretty un-fucking-likely_ that he would be in the same Whole Foods as Phil from THE INCIDENT out of all the fucking Whole Foods in London.

But it’s unmistakable. It’s Phil’s neat black hair and wide pale eyes, a family sized bag of extra-butter popcorn clutched in his long fingers. Dan didn’t even know Whole Foods sold extra-butter anything. Maybe it’s vegan. Vegan butter. This is exactly what he should be worrying about in this moment.

He watches in horrible slow motion – a level of dramatization achievable only by a former theater kid – as Phil’s eyes widen and then narrow, popcorn dropping to the linoleum floor as he points an accusatory finger at Dan. His lips move in a comically exaggerated way around one scandalized syllable: _“You.”_

Dan, horrified, feels his hands rise into a limp impression of jazz hands. “Me,” he agrees, smiling weakly. 

“You!” Phil says again. His finger is still pointing, but now it’s shaking, too. He advances on Dan. “You! You – _you!_ ”

Dan chuckles. He’s in danger.

“You – you _broke _my fucking _window_!” says Phil at an alarmingly high volume. A small elderly woman shoots them both a withering look as she shuffles by but is largely ignored. “You _jumped out my second story window_ just so you wouldn’t have to have _sex_ with me!”__

__“Well, I think that’s a little unfair,” Dan protests feebly._ _

__“You – “ Phil’s back to sputtering. “You think it’s _unfair_?”_ _

__“Look, Phil, I really am sorry! I…”_ _

__Phil inflates like a righteous party balloon and Dan takes a step back. “Sorry,” says Phil, “doesn’t really cut it. I just think you owe me an explanation, maybe. _And not_ ” – Dan had opened his mouth but snaps it shut here – “that same story about ‘it’s just not right, we’re just not right’ because that’s… it’s shit, and you know it.” He deflates a bit, shoulders slumping. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, is all. I don’t mean to be crazy – that’s not really me, I promise – although I think it might be warranted? – but, Dan, please. I just need the truth and then I’ll be able to move on.”_ _

__Dan chews nervously on his pinky nail and says nothing. At least Phil’s not yelling anymore, but this, the guilt, might be worse – and worse still that he can’t explain. Because what would he say? That he was going to make Phil into his dinner for the night – and not even in the sexy way! – consent and Phil’s feeling be damned? That’s the hard part, Dan realizes. Not explaining that he’s a monster straight out of some bad Freeform TV show aimed at horny teens, but that his intentions had always been to hurt Phil. Not in the way he’d ended up doing, of course, but…_ _

__He’s a piece of shit. Next question._ _

__“Dan, come on,” Phil says. “You probably owe me at least this. Maybe.”_ _

__“No, I definitely do,” Dan says quickly. Phil nods once, almost hesitant, and Dan sighs theatrically. Phil looks on expectantly as he makes a show of worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, trying to look like he’s thinking about what he’s going to say. Phil’s eyes look really nice in the grocery store lighting, which is wildly unhelpful and thinking about him on a superficial level is probably insulting to Phil’s dignity and intellect or something, but –_ _

__God, he’s even rambling in his thoughts. He knows that this shouldn’t be a tricky situation – morally, there’s a very clear good path and a very clear… not good one. He _knows_ this, and yet the thought of telling Phil the truth – which, yes, is the good path – makes him want to test out that little “stake through the heart” myth to see if it has any merit. _ _

__But what is he if not morally upstanding?_ _

__He lets out a noisy breath. “Here it is, then,” he says. Phil nods encouragingly. “It’s quite embarrassing. I am actually… lactose intolerant.” And the “morally upstanding” train begins its slow, morbidly drawn-out crash. No stopping it now. “I – I know. I was just as shocked as you are when I found out. I didn’t want you to think less of me because of my… condition, so I ran away.” A dramatically clenched fist. “I ran away! When I bit you, it was because… well, quite honestly, your skin is like milk. Milky white, or something – hey, that’s a compliment! And I – you know, I missed milk, and there you were, looking like a nice warm cup of – of milk, so what was I to do! And then it all just_ happened _, you know, and I thought to myself, ‘Oh no, surely he’s figured it out!’ so I ran away.”__

__Phil says nothing. He appears unable to say anything, in fact. His milky skin is turning a very alarming shade of molted purple and his mouth opens and closes like those pond fish they make you pay twenty-five pence to feed._ _

_Catfish_ , his brain supplies, ever helpful. _They’re called catfish._

__Right. Like a catfish._ _

“You,” says Phil finally, looking increasingly less like a catfish and more like a very angry man, _“bitch.”_

__Dan deserves that, he concedes, but the familiar need to exit this situation immediately overshadows the satisfaction of seeing cosmic justice served. So he says, “right!” with a note of cheery finality. “Glad I got that off my chest. Lovely seeing y – “_ _

__Phil does not accept any such finality. The crease between his pale eyebrows deepens. “I was so _nice_ about this and you still lied to my –”_ _

__“Would you look at the time! I’ve – “_ _

__“– such a _bastard_ , I can’t –”_ _

__“– got a thing, very important –”_ _

__“ – just tell me and I’ll –”_ _

__“See you, then!” Dan bursts out finally, louder than he meant. Whatever insult to Dan’s character Phil was about to say next hangs heavily between them as they both freeze._ _

__Phil shakes his head. Dan nods his._ _

__“You’re not,” says Phil, a little uncharacteristically dark, “just going to run away again.”_ _

__“I have,” says Dan, in what he hopes is a matching tone, “a thing.” And he turns on his heal and walks away, cart clattering along in front of him._ _

__He hears an indignant squawk from behind him. “No, Dan, come on –”_ _

__He walks faster, pushing his cart around a corner into the canned goods section of the store. And there, behind him – footsteps._ _

__No. This isn’t happening._ _

__“ _Dan_! This is so dumb. What are you hiding?”_ _

__“Stop following me,” Dan throws over his shoulder, grabbing a can of some vegetable compote monstrosity without slowing._ _

__“No, _you_ stop speed-walking away from me and _tell me what_ –”_ _

__Dan breaks into a light jog, his cart rattling in protest._ _

__From behind him, he hears, “Oh my god.” And then Phil’s footsteps are louder and faster, huffy breaths seemingly right in his ear, fingers snatching at Dan’s shirt. He is… chasing him. In a Whole Foods._ _

__“Go away,” Dan says, tugging his shirt free. He speeds up a bit and tries to sound unbothered, but he’s just as out of breath as Phil._ _

__“No!”_ _

__“Jesus _Christ_ , mate.” Dan does what he has to do: as he rounds the corner into the produce section, he breaks out into a run. He doesn’t need to look behind him to know that Phil has done the same, so he just concentrates on losing him. He zips by the Gala apples and a very disgruntled Whole Foods employee._ _

__“Wha – ” she tries, but Dan is long gone into the bread aisle, the bang-bang-bang of Phil’s shopping basket against his leg and various other store displays a constant reminder of what he’ll have to face if he stops._ _

__“You’re the – oh, Jesus, stop running – you’re the world’s biggest baby!” Phil yells._ _

__“Oh, fuck _off_ already,” Dan grits out. _ _

__“I will _not_!” _ _

__Possibly to demonstrate that he’s not a baby, Dan reaches out and starts swiping loaves of bread off the shelves as he passes them, and he’s able to be satisfied for exactly one second as he hears the crinkly sound of Phil tripping over several plastic-wrapped objects before he feels one hit him squarely in the back. He winces. Fucking Dave’s fucking prison bread. And fuck Phil’s weirdly good aim._ _

__Dan throws up his middle finger, almost losing his cart in the process – seriously, _why_ does he still have this fucking cart? – and turns violently into the next aisle over. The turn is a bit too violent, however; his cart slams into a sale rack for those Milano cookies and the whole thing crashes down horribly. He has so much momentum with his cart that he doesn’t even stop – can’t even stop – and just careens down the aisle. Phil runs right over the cookies, which Dan knows because the sound of the crinkling paper of a Milano cookie container being crushed under the feet of a six-foot man is a very distinct one. _ _

__An old lady – surely not the same one as before? Dan’s moving too fast to see – whips her head around to stare in shock, and Phil’s close enough behind him that Dan hears him crash violently by her, followed by an out of breath apology._ _

__A loud beep sounds. It’s loud enough that it startles Dan into a grinding halt, suddenly enough that Phil crashes into his back. A panicked voice warble over the intercom. “Right, yes, we have a bit of a situation, or – can we get security to…to aisle three? Or four, now?” A pause. Dan figures it’s very likely he’s the situation. And then another beep. “Look, I don’t know what aisle they’re in, but I need security. Now.” Another pause, followed by another beep. “Have a great day, shoppers!” A quieter voice says, “Get off the fucking intercom, Jessica,” before the generic shopping music cuts back in._ _

__Dan wonders for one glorious moment what the situation might be before it becomes upsettingly obvious. They are the situation. _He_ is the situation._ _

__Dan is frozen. His motto, his _goal_ , his _one_ measure of daily success, is keeping a low profile. Don’t let them know you’re a vampire, Dan. Don’t let them look too closely at your papers, Dan. Don’t mention the mysterious disappearance of your old landlady, Dan. And this – this! – is not keeping a low profile. He’s not going down for this!– mostly because getting in trouble for traipsing through a grocery store with a man yelling about why you didn’t want to have sex with him so bad you jumped out his second-story window is, to say the least, really embarrassing._ _

__He risks a glance back at Phil. He’s also frozen, the reality of their collective temper tantrum seeming to be settling in for him, too. Then they hear a walkie-talkie and a very disgruntled official-sounding voice connected to some very clompy shoes, and they break for it. Dan abandons his precious cart and Phil drops his basket as they speed walk away from the incoming voice, Phil with his hands shoved casually in his pockets and Dan whistling in that way that all people do when they’re unbothered and very innocent. A set of double doors appear at the end of the aisle like a fucking mirage, very clearly labelled “EMPLOYEES ONLY”, and they duck inside them after a cursory glance around. No prowly security guard to be seen._ _

__“What the fuck do we do?” Dan hisses once they’re through the doors. They’re in a backroom lit by several florescent lightbulbs hanging from wires, illuminating the fifty billion cases of La Croix that line every wall. “They’re gonna come back here eventually.”_ _

__“Ah…” Phil’s eyes dart around the space, which is to say, around the La Croix cases. He points to a storage closet. “There?”_ _

__“We can’t –”_ _

__“Oh, I didn’t know we had the option to be picky right now!”_ _

__“We don’t, it’s just that surely there’s another option besides –”_ _

__A voice sounds through the doors. “…might’ve gone back here?”_ _

__“Storage closet it is,” Dan says under his breath, and then there’s a lot of high-stakes clamoring, Phil’s foot going into his arse for a second there, but just as the they hear the employee door swing open they’re situated. Dan’s elbow is bent at maybe the world’s most uncomfortable angle and Phil’s entire side is pressed against his, but by god, they’re situated. Dan pulls the storage closet door shut as far as it can go, a bare sliver of light cutting across the darkness of the space._ _

__“I told you,” says one voice. “They were probably just crackheads.”_ _

__Phil’s kneecap knocks against Dan’s._ _

__“Yeah, but we can’t have them, like, peeing on the merchandise or whatever. Langley said to find them.”_ _

__A snort. “Langley can suck my dick.”_ _

__“I’ll tell him you offered, see if you still have a job.”_ _

__“Whatever.” There’s a lot of shuffling. “You’re not actually going to tell Langley, right?”_ _

__“No, dude.” Some more shuffling. “Come on, you’re right. They’re not in here. Unless you think they’re in the fucking storage closet.”_ _

__Dan and Phil both stiffen, but the two disembodied voices just laugh and get further away, still talking about the mysterious Langley person. Dan turns his wide eyes to Phil, illuminated only by a sliver of light._ _

__“I hope they fuck,” Dan says quietly._ _

__“What?”_ _

__“I hope they –”_ _

__“No, I heard you,” Phil says. “Why would they fuck?”_ _

__“Oh. I thought there was some sexual tension. Maybe Langley will get involved, or something. Make an orgy of it.”_ _

__Phil’s distain is amplified in the darkness of the supply closet. “Oh, Jesus Christ.”_ _

__“The whole bit about Langley? That’s Grade A jealousy, baby, which is fucking rocket fuel for sexual tension.”_ _

__“You’re the expert,” Phil says slowly. “I’ll trust your opinion on this one.”_ _

__“Well, there you go, then.”_ _

__There’s a resounding silence in their little storage closet, made heavier by how awkward it is._ _

__“Are you ever going to tell me the truth?” Phil asks finally. “Or are we just going to make however long we’re going to need to be in here as uncomfortable as possible?”_ _

__Dan genuinely thinks about this, about everything he’s done wrong thus far, about how – against all odds – there are still ways he can fuck up more. Equally as awe-inspiring is the fact that it appears he still might be able to un-fuck this whole thing with Phil._ _

__Without preamble, he says, “I’m a vampire.”_ _

__“Okay,” Phil says, also without hesitation. “That makes sense. Thanks for telling me.”_ _

__Dan stares at him. “No problem.”_ _

__“Right.”_ _

__There’s another minute of silence, this time made heavier by how nonchalant they’re both pretending to be. Phil looks to be about bursting with questions and Dan’s about bursting with the thrill of telling someone; he gives in first. “Oh, just ask,” he says. “I know it’s a lot.”_ _

__Phil lets out a noisy breath. “Oh, thank god. Okay, um. That night. Was your plan, you know…” he makes a face, “to, like, eat me?”_ _

__“No, but it _was_ to. Uh. Feed. From you. So sorry about that.”_ _

__“And you did, right?” Phil turns his head to face Dan as much as he can in the small space. “Feed from me? I mean, that’s what it felt like. That’s why I can accept all this so easily.” He makes a face. “Semi-easily.”_ _

__Dan swallows. “…Yes. I fed from you.”_ _

__“Oh,” Phil says quietly. “I mean, I guess I knew that. After you left, I saw the puncture wounds and I was like, wow, either this guy’s _really_ into biting or… you know. But I thought I was crazy. I wanted you to be the one to tell me.”_ _

__“You weren’t crazy, Phil.”_ _

__“I know that _now_.” Phil runs a hand through his neat black hair, and a strand breaks loose and falls into his wide eyes. “This… this whole thing is crazy, though. I always kind of thought stuff like this was real.”_ _

__Dan settles back against the wall of the supply closet. “You would.”_ _

__Dan can barely make out Phil’s answering smile. It drops, though, after a second. “So, you…” Phil swallows. “I mean, I was, what? Snack time?”_ _

__“Don’t be so hard on yourself; you were dinner.” Phil doesn’t laugh and Dan sighs. “I was attracted to you, if that’s what you’re asking. I went to that club because I needed blood, but I never… never would’ve gone home with someone who I wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole, you know?”_ _

__Phil nods absently. “So you wanted to poke me with your ten-foot pole.”_ _

__“Oh, Jesus Christ.” They both laugh, whisper-soft. “I wanted to do more than that,” Dan says when everything’s quiet again._ _

__Phil hums. “You’re still an asshole, you know. I felt… you know, disgusting. I thought there was something wrong with me. I knew I came on too strong, but…” he shakes his head. “And then I find you again and you have the audacity to tell me that you’re lactose intolerant, which you got – what? – so embarrassed about that that you decided to jump out my window?”_ _

__Dan cringes. “I wanted to tell you!” he says. “But you have to understand that I’ve told people and it hasn’t ended well. I shouldn’t have made your feelings collateral damage, but just know that that’s where I was at.” He thinks for a moment. “Also I was scared of you.”_ _

__Phil laughs. “I know,” he says. “For good reason, too. I’m very intimidating. I’ve been known to chase people around grocery stores when provoked.”_ _

__Dan feels his lips twitch up. “You quirky bitch,” he says fondly, and lets his head drop onto Phil’s shoulder. Phil stiffens momentarily before relaxing into the touch, letting out a shuddery breath._ _

__“I really am sorry,” Dan says._ _

__“It’s okay.” Phil sounds like he means it._ _

__“And I’m sorry I escalated things to the point where you had to chase me around a grocery store.”_ _

__“I said it’s fine, Dan,” Phil laughs._ _

__“And I’m sorry,” Dan says quietly, “that I made you feel like you aren’t someone… desirable. Made you feel like there was something wrong with you.”_ _

__Phil is quiet for a long stretch of time, and Dan hears him audibly swallow before he answers. “It’s okay. I understand why.”_ _

__Dan cannot let it go. “’Cause you’re a really great person,” he says. “A really great, hot person who I am attracted to.”_ _

__Phil shoves him. “Okay, I get it! I’m out of your league.”_ _

__They laugh again, and then fall into a more comfortable silence than they’d been able to manage before their little talk._ _

__“Wait,” Phil says, and Dan pops his head up from his shoulder. “How am I the first one-night-stand-slash-snack that’s given you trouble?”_ _

__“Ah,” Dan says. “That’s the mystery. I don’t really do science-y stuff so don’t fact check me or ask me to elaborate on anything I’m about to say about vampire biology – “_ _

__“I was an English major,” Phil cuts in helpfully._ _

__“Oh, perfect. And also we’ve already established I’m an asshole so you’re not allowed to be mad.”_ _

__“Spit it out!”_ _

__“Funny you should say that! There’s a… chemical? Compound? Component? – Component! – to my saliva that acts as a sedative, and… I guess, a kind of memory inhibitor? Wait, don’t give me that look! I don’t _do_ things to people while they’re asleep, okay, it’s just that after I bite them they get all woozy and usually fall asleep and when they wake up they have no concrete memories of me.”_ _

__Phil frowns. “But I didn’t? I didn’t do any of that.”_ _

__“No,” Dan says. “You didn’t. And it’s too bad you’re asking about it because I was hoping _you_ could explain that little phenomenon to _me_.”_ _

__Phil look thoughtful in the near-black of the storage closet. “You know,” he says, “my grandparents were blood-related, so maybe my incest-baby genes are anti-vampire.”_ _

__“I am… appalled. That can’t be it.”_ _

__“Probably not.” Phil shrugs._ _

__“Something to look into later, I suppose, then,” Dan says carefully._ _

__Phil catches the implications – that Dan wants there to be a later, that Dan doesn’t want to run away again. He doesn’t say anything but he does nod, and it’s more of a win than Dan was expecting._ _

__“Okay,” Dan says. “okay, cool. Remind me to give you my number later.”_ _

__Phil swallows, and his voice has a little strain in it when he speaks. “Right. Maybe… maybe we could get dinner or something.”_ _

__“Dinner,” Dan parrots, taken off guard._ _

__“Yeah? I thought – _oh._ You can’t eat. Vampire. Stupid Phil. Right – oh, wow, for the record, when I said dinner, I didn’t mean like –”_ _

__“No!” Dan cuts in, so violently that Phil startles. He curbs his enthusiasm and settles down. “No, I can eat a bit. I’d love to get dinner. Dinner, yes. Love it. It’s a plan. No take-backs.”_ _

__Phil relaxes. “Then I guess we’re getting dinner.”_ _

__This whole thing feels like it worked out far too well. He tried to eat Phil, and now here the guy was, agreeing – offering! – to go on a date with him. Something inside Dan, the little angsty something that grown accustomed to the idea of being perpetually alone, flutters a little._ _

__“So,” Phil starts. “Now that we know we’re getting dinner, I guess we have to figure out how we’re getting out of here. Unless you want to live here and drink La Croix for the rest of your life.”_ _

__“Thought you’d never ask, frankly.”_ _

__“Wow, you’re remarkably less helpful when there’s no window for you to jump out of as soon as you feel uncomfortable – oh, you’re paying for the damage on that one, by the way, because –”_ _

__“That’s it!”_ _

__“Paying for –?”_ _

__“No, window. Window! There’s gotta be a window in here. I’ll just – I mean, there’s a couple perks about the whole vampire thing. It’ll work out. Oh, that’s brilliant. I fucking love windows.”_ _

__Phil is quiet for a moment. “So we’re really ending this how we ended the first night we met?”_ _

__Dan looks over at him, disgruntled. “What? I’m taking you with me this time, of course.”_ _

__Dan wishes he could see Phil, because there’s a bit of stammering that goes on before Phil manages a rather breathless, “Really?”_ _

__Dan snorts. “I know I don’t look like lift and that’s because I absolutely don’t – but let vampire biology take care of it. We’ll have you hop on piggyback and it’ll all work out. Hopefully before any Whole Foods employee fucks back here for some La Croix – ooh, or to have a torrid, manager-employee affair with Langley or whatever his name was.”_ _

__“No, I wasn’t doubting your abilities – oh my god, you’re still on about the sexual tension thing, alright – it’s just. Reassuring. To know that you weren’t lying. You’re not going to run away again.”_ _

__“Oh, you,” Dan sighs. “I jump out of a window _one_ time and you’re suddenly all insecure. I’ll just say it – I know we only met once and after that one time I avoided you for eight entire days, but my secret’s up anyway so Phil, I really like you. And I would like to jump out of a window with you, if you’d let me. And then go to dinner.”_ _

__Phil laughs. “To think I thought you were cool for a second. Alright, Dan.” Without warning, he stretches out a foot and kicks open the storage closet door. “Let’s go jump out a fucking window.”_ _

__For the third and final time in his immortal life, Dan Howell does what any socially awkward impulse-driven immortal would do: he clamors out of the storage closet and jumps out the first window he sees. But this time, he’s got a guy on his back, elated laughter shrieking out of him as he crashes through the screen (he’d been smart enough to knock the pane off this time before jumping, but the screen still burns his skin as he breaks through it._ _

__It doesn’t matter, though.)_ _

__Phil takes his hand and they sprint into the Sunday evening, and like –_ _

__They have more to talk about, more logistics to work out, but – most importantly – right now, they have dinner to get to._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok wow!!! is that rushed? OH yeah. but is it finished?? OH YEAH!!! after... 3 entire months.
> 
> in all seriousness, i'm really unhappy with this chapter and i was tempted to abandon this story, but i kept coming back and reading your comments and i was like ok you know what??? we're going to finish this bad boy. so thank you all for that, it's really such a kind, wonderful wonderful thing that you took the time to do that.
> 
> on that note, look out for an epilogue! i promise it will be timely this time around :) that is the i'm lying smiley


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote the first chapters pre-"Basically I'm Gay" (dir. dan howell) so dan was bi in chapter 1 so i had to fix it here so sorry if that seems a little weird i just couldn't let it go!!!! also welcome to the epilogue thank you for making it this far!

Labels

“So,” says Dan, plopping down next to Phil on their ratty, terrible couch. He shoves his cold toes under Phil’s thigh. “I do not like women.”

Phil puts down his booklet of Sudoku puzzles that he’s been pretending to do off and on for a couple days now (Dan had looked at his search history and found “how to do sudoku” and “sudoku rules,” which is how he knows Phil is full of shit). Phil says, very slowly, “O…kay? Me either.”

Dan snorts. “That I knew. But besides having very tasty blood, I am not attracted to women and I just thought you should know.”

Phil looks thoughtful. “I guess… does it make a difference, really?”

“Mm. Yeah. Labels are… hard, but this one’s important, I think. I’m not bisexual, as much as I wanted myself to be, which I think I was just beginning to figure out before I got turned. And it’s really shown me that, like, attraction, to me, has been so synonymous with… um, eating people – and I’m obviously equal opportunity on that front – but I have no desire to be with a woman. And that means something about myself that it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with.”

Phil is smiling now. “Alright, Danny Boy. Let’s hear you say it, then.”

Dan looks Phil in the eye. “I’m gay.”

There’s a beat of silence as Phil processes, despite clearly knowing what Dan was going to say, but then he’s smiling his too-wide smile and crinkling his eyes, and he surges forward to kiss Dan. He says, “I’m proud of you,” against Dan’s lips and that makes Dan grin too, and then it’s not kissing as much as it is Phil muttering against Dan’s teeth.

Romantic gestures are a little more complicated in real life than they are in theory.

Phil pulls away and they just look at each other, taking in this little moment – another small piece of Dan he’s managed to share with Phil, another section of his proverbial walls that he’s proverbially bulldozed. One day he’ll knock them down completely, lay himself trembling and vulnerable in front of Phil as Phil has managed to do for him already – but Phil will wait for as long as it takes for Dan to get there, so the notion isn’t as bone-crushingly terrifying as it probably could be. 

This, though. This is a big step in that direction.

“No women for us,” Dan says after he’s decided the moment has gone on for long enough. “Lesbian rights, though, yeah?” 

“Hell yeah,” says Phil. “Lesbian rights.”

 

Habits 

Phil has been gone for three days when Dan is forced to confront how used to – or more than that, how _reliant_ on – Phil’s presence he’s become. It’s the seventh time in an hour that he’s looked up to share something with Phil – a joke, a fact, a smile – and found their shared flat empty.

Phil’s only going to be away two more days, but in this moment it feels like an eternity, because now it’s just Dan and the flat that is not just his and the knowledge that he cannot live without this bizarre giant man-baby that he’s attached himself to. After that, he manages to keep himself busy enough that his mind is kept occupied – he’s got to drink _someone’s_ blood while Phil’s away – but the niggling thought is there at the back of his brain like a ticking time bomb. 

They Skype that night, past one so they can be sure Phil’s colleagues are asleep in their surrounding hotel rooms.

“That’s my hoodie,” Dan says as soon as Phil answers.

Phil pulls a face. “You can’t complain!”

“I most definitely can, and just because you said that, I think I will. That is my hoodie, Phil – I was looking for it today –”

“– You’re so full of shit –”

“– and frankly, this is theft.”

“Says the guy that wore my _underwear_ the other day? And aren’t you supposed to find it endearing when your significant other wears your clothes?”

“Be more endearing, then,” Dan says. He tries not to smile and fails.

Phil pulls his face into an exaggerated pout. “I know you miss me. And that you think it’s super hot that I’m wearing your clothes. ‘Oh, Phil!’ you’re saying to yourself. ‘You look so good in my clothes! I am overcome with emotion and cannot stand to be apart from you anymore! Please come home sooner!’” 

He pitches his voice up about ten billion octaves to imitate Dan’s voice, and the dog whistle tones along with the crackly connection combine to make the most grating sound Dan’s ever encountered. 

He opens his mouth to say something about it, but what comes out is a quiet, “Please come home sooner.” It’s so obviously sincere that he feels himself flush down to his neck.

Phil’s face has gone lightly pink as well, not used to such a sincere display of Dan’s affection. “I miss you, too,” he says. “I read an article on monkey reproduction and I looked up to tell you about it, but you weren’t there. It felt so weird.”

Dan looks away from Phil, over the top of his laptop. In the couple months he’s known Phil his whole world has been turned upside down – into something beautiful and strange and hilarious and wonderful that Dan doesn’t recognize. There are a million things he wants to tell Phil, but here, in the not-quite-real hours of the morning, with Phil reduced to a couple blurry pixels on a screen, doesn’t feel like the time or the place. “Two more days,” is all he says.

Phil agrees. “Two more days and I’ll be home.”

 

Milestones 

They approach each other from opposite ends of the flat as soon as Dan gets home from work, rain still dripping from Dan’s jacket and front door sitting forgotten and ajar.

“Produce your monstrosity,” Dan says heatedly.

“On three?”

“On three. One, two, go!”

They both whip their pastry boxes out from behind their backs. Dan had gotten his cake from the bakery section of a grocery store before work that morning, meaning it’s more than a little disheveled. It’s white with fondant unicorns and pink icing that wishes the viewer a “happy birthday, princess!” He had pressed a piece of legal paper over “birthday” so that it now reads “anniversary” instead. 

It’s hideous, and he knows he’s going to win – but he looks at Phil’s contribution, anyway. He feels like having good sportsmanship tonight.

Phil’s cake also looks suspiciously like it’s from the bakery section of a grocery store, though Phil’s obviously made some modifications. The cake is dark and there’s a fondant Dracula adorning the top. There are some crumbled Oreos on top of Dracula’s head to imitate dark curls, a mess of blue sour candy in the middle, and one gummy bear. Phil hasn’t bothered to change the frosted message: “Have a Spooktacular Birthday!”

By the time they’re done appraising each other’s cake, they’re both in stitches. “Wh – what the fuck is this?” Dan manages. 

Phil is laughing in that squeaky, silent way that he does, but he calms down enough to explain. “It’s – oh, my god – it’s you and the fucking window you broke that night – the night we met, you know.” He still sounds a little breathless from laughing and Dan wants to kiss him so badly his heart squeezes. 

“Are you the gummy bear?” he asks, smile achingly fond.

“Yes! I picked the saddest possible gummy bear out of the bag to represent my true feelings that night. Also, tell me I’ve won, because I have.”

“Your mum’s a sad gummy bear,” Dan says, which means he knows he’s lost. Phil says nothing at that, only keeps beaming triumphantly; Dan looks down at his own princess/unicorn monstrosity. “Only because this one is disgustingly gendered and you did objectively put more effort in,” he concedes. “Well played, Lester.”

Phil grins and places his cake gingerly to the side, on their kitchen island. Dan does the same and then they’re reaching for each other – Phil whispers, “happy anniversary,” and Dan is so happy that words and thoughts and everything but Phil leaves his sphere of existence. Luckily, Phil doesn’t need any words; he kisses Dan, slow and sweet, and there’s no more mention of their tacky cakes or competitions. 

It’s been a year of Phil Lester and his mismatched socks strewn around their flat. One year of his terrible shower performances and hot blood and sweet smiles. Dan feels so comfortable with what they have that he should be scared, should feel the familiar urge to run and never look back – but here he is, kissing his boyfriend on their anniversary, and he finds that there isn’t much in the world that could convince him to move from right where he is, nothing Phil could say that could compel Dan to stop kissing him.

“Dan,” Phil breathes. Dan kisses his jaw, his cheek, his closed eyelids. “I want you to turn me.”

And _oh_ – yeah. Okay. Turns out there is in fact one thing Phil could say that could compel Dan to stop kissing him.

“I wanna be a vampire.”

 

Promises

“I’m not saying Velma isn’t a lesbian,” Phil says from the living room. He has to raise his voice a little so Dan can hear him from the kitchen and it makes their conversation seem more heated than it is.

“Good,” Dan cuts in. “Because she is.”

“But Daphne? Isn’t she with – you know, the blond one? Fred?”

“Oh Phil,” Dan sighs. He turns down the burner on the stove and pushes the stir-fry around the pan with a wooden spoon. “We’ve already talked about compulsive heterosexuality. Look at Velma and Daphne interact _once_ and tell me they’re not girlfriends.”

“They’re not girlfriends,” Phil says definitively. 

“I said look at them interact first!”

“I don’t need to! You need to stop going on Tumblr so much! You had no opinions on queer theory through the lens of Scooby Doo, like, a year ago.”

“But our life is so much better for me having discovered my true passion,” Dan says. “Come eat.”

It’s only moments before Phil pads into the kitchen. He slips his arms around Dan’s waist and rests his head on Dan’s shoulder as he finishes up with their dinner. Neither of them strictly need to eat anymore, but they both still enjoy it and neither of them understand or care enough about science to question how their undead bodies process the food. 

“’Our life,’” Phil says. Dan feels his huffed laugh against his cheek. 

“What?”

“You said ‘our life.’ Our collective life.”

“We are one being,” Dan says, monotone. “Behold – behold Daphil and tremble. The biggest gay disaster you’ve ever seen.”

“Daphil?”

“That’s our collective name, if we were one person. Dan-Phil.”

“Yeah, but ‘Daphil?’”

“I panicked!”

“How ‘bout ‘Dil’?”

“Aw,” says Dan. “It’s horrible! I love it. Go set the table.”

Phil detaches himself from Dan’s back and wanders over to the cabinets. They’ve settled so neatly into their routine that tonight feels as easy as breathing, but like if breathing was something wonderful and heart wrenching and spectacular.

Dan gets a little poetic when it comes to Phil.

As Phil lays out silverware Dan feels compelled to say, “I am the happiest I’ve ever been. I hope you know that.”

Phil is somewhat used to Dan’s random bursts of affection by now – they were a huge development a year ago, but they’re now a welcome but unsurprising reminder. Phil doesn’t pause what he’s doing. “I know. Me too,” he says, and there’s a happy hum in his voice that Dan will never get tired of.

“That’s gay,” he says.

Phil snorts. “You started it.”

“Velma and Daphne from Scooby Doo started it.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Phil whirls around to face Dan. “That’s it. Their names are banned from this household. All of Scooby Doo, in fact. We are Scooby-free from now on.”

Dan laughs maniacally as he scoops stir-fry onto both of their plates. “Sounds a bit like I win this round, hmm?”

“You don’t win an argument just because you annoy the other person so much they can’t talk about it anymore!”

“Oh, Phil, Phil, Phil,” Dan sighs. “You should have thought about my capacity for annoyance before you signed up for eternity with me.” He’s joking, of course, but… but he has to check, too. Sometimes.

Phil recognizes Dan’s not fully joking and leans across the table to cradle his face. “I love you,” he says. “Even your bad Tumblr opinions. I’ll love them forever, if you let me, Dan. You know that.”

Dan breaks into an easy smile, closes his eyes briefly against Phil’s palm. “I know. It’s the same for me. We’re beginning to sound like broken records but I’m certainly not complaining.”

Phil only laughs and comes around to Dan’s side of the table. “I don’t really want to eat stir-fry right now,” he says into Dan’s ear.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Phil…”

“Hm?”

“…are Velma and Daphne reeeeeeally about to get me laid tonight?”

“Oh my _god._ ” Phil pulls away from Dan before Dan can react and storms away. “You’re lucky I love you,” he throws over his shoulder. “The shit you put me through, Howell.” Dan hears a door shut rather violently, and oh – Phil’s certainly in a mood tonight. He feels a spark of excitement at that thought, somewhere deep in his core. A smile spreads slowly across his face.

“Are you coming?” comes Phil’s muffled voice from their bedroom.

Dan laughs. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m right behind you.”

This moment is so trivial, but it’s his life – it’s the _rest_ of his life, by some miracle. But hey, he’s not going to delve into a monologue for once, because his really hot boyfriend is waiting for him in the bedroom.

And as he scrambles down their short hallway to said bedroom, he’s so glad that he has eternity left for these little moments. (He thinks about that at the same time he wonders how Phil will react to Scooby Doo roleplay. He can’t be _that_ angry?)

For the fourth – and certainly not the final – time in his immortal life, Dan Howell does what any socially awkward impulse-driven undead being would do: he opens the door to his bedroom and forces his very angry boyfriend to listen to his Velma impression, only flinches a little when he receives a pillow to the face, and loves, and loves, and loves.

 

End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh wowwww. she's done! thank you to anyone who's ever left a kudos or a comment because i did look at them and did SHED REAL TEARS at times so you are literally angels and i hope you all find twenty dollar bills on the ground today!!!! you're really the reason this bad boy got finished even when i kind of hated it. so thank you!
> 
> this ending is... whack and also fueled by 3 a.m. adrenaline but it's what we got so i won't get self-deprecating this time. thank you so much for reading this, sorry for how long it took, aaaaaaaaand maybe i'll see you all again :-)

**Author's Note:**

> what a very light and tasteful sprinkling of angst!


End file.
